Absolutely. He’s Buffalo’s best player and would have been a fantastic signing.

However, he was never on the market as such. His rights were traded first to the Islanders and then to the Sabres and he was signed before July 1. If Holland was blasted it was for not trading for his rights.

Ehrhoff is an absolute steal at his cap hit and has played very well in the untenable nightmare that Buffalo has become.

That’s pretty spectacular hyperbole. Ehrhoff’s been decent but his contract is very Franzian, so if you’re one of those who thinks the Franzen contract is a boondoggle of some severity, well, there you go.

And actually, even if you just evaluate his on-ice play separate from his contract he hasn’t been particularly impressive. He missed quite a bit of time in year 1 (16 games), the short season was undeniably his best effort in Buffalo, it took him nearly three seasons to score as many goals as he did in each of his last two in Vancouver (14 there twice to 5, 5 and then 6 last year), and he finished the 12-13 campaign on a 23 game goal drought wherein he managed exactly 6 assists and went -20.

“Absolute steal” and “played very well” are phrases which, when applied to what Ehrhoff’s actually done, become pretty laughable. I mean, let’s put his offensive production in a bit of context. At non-PP the past three seasons Ehrhoff has 55 points in 192 games, so a .286 clip

Freaking Ericsson has a .216 pace, has just about zero offensive ability, and played around 15-20% less per game to boot. Normalize for IT and those guys offensive productions aren’t tremendously dissimilar.

Ehrhoff’s been okay and yes, playing in Buffalo’s a drag. Still, go easy with the puffery.

-Detroit had the second best offense in the West, a whopping one goal behind Vancouver.

-Detroit was 3rd overall in shots against per game.

-Detroit was 7th overall in goals against per game.

-Ian White had a fabulous year that season, while you may not remember it. He had the best +/- on the team (+23), he had 32 points (which is what Ehrhoff-of-the-steal-at-4-mil barely does yearly in a much larger role), and Holland got that production and play for an under 3 mil cap hit in a year where the Wings didn’t have hardly any cap space at all.

So, yeah, maybe 2011-12 isn’t exactly the year to pee all over Holland about not getting it done in the UFA season.

Not really. $4M for the kind of value he’s provided is an extremely good deal. For it to come from a guy who didn’t sign that deal as an RFA, it’s rare to see that kind of value.

“Absolute steal” and “played very well” are phrases which, when applied to what Ehrhoff’s actually done, become pretty laughable. I mean, let’s put his offensive production in a bit of context. At non-PP the past three seasons Ehrhoff has 55 points in 192 games, so a .286 clip

The sheer amount of context you had to bend, twist, and outright ignore all to simply say that “outright steal” is perhaps too strong after what was a (valid) call-out for adding his name to a conversation where it didn’t belong must have been exhausting for you.

You mean to tell me that the guy who had the most ice time of all skaters on 2010-11’s highest scoring team in the NHL might have seen his pace drop off going to a team that hasn’t been above 16th in league scoring since then and was in fact dead last this past season?

Golly, I might need to sit down before I’m overcome.

Get real, man. Ehrhoff would have been a good signing, so jumping on your revisionist history high horse to wag your finger at fans over ever wanting Brad Richards because they also wanted Christian Ehrhoff is plain silly.